In the design of hardware applications, it is often necessary to choose one valid entry from a set of valid inputs as the output. Furthermore, in situations where the output is not pre-determined, the resulting output entry must appear randomly chosen in order so that no specific entry or set of entries is consistently overlooked. Moreover, for testing and pre-determined selection purposes, the solution must also be deterministic. The present invention provides a deterministic pseudo-random algorithm that addresses the aforementioned issues.